"Do you wonder why Democrats are freaking out about spending cuts? Jeffrey Epstein was getting payments from USAID! and who else?!" says a February 5, 2025 post on X.
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Screenshot from X taken February 13, 2025
Similar posts spread widely across X and other platforms including Instagram as Trump and Elon Musk, tasked by the president with overhauling the federal government, announced the administration's decision to dismantle USAID and put almost all of its more than 10,000 employees on leave.
The agency has for decades funded health and emergency programs as well as democracy promotion initiatives in about 120 countries, including the world's poorest regions. Trump, Musk and his allies have alleged the agency is rife with "fraud" but provided little evidence to support their allegations.
Online claims that USAID's massive spending included payments to the convicted sex offender Epstein are also false.
A search of USAspending.gov, an official open data source compiling federal spending information, shows no USAID funds funneled to the late financier.
The posts spreading online are based on a screenshot, supposedly of government spending records, that shows a "Jeffrey E Epstein" was paid $265,915 for his role as a director at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan in the 2023 tax year.
But the notorious and disgraced Epstein died by suicide in 2019 -- four years earlier -- after authorities charged him with federal sex trafficking.
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